Another medical update you should know about-

A few weeks ago I mentioned a friend Ben who had suffered 2 apparent heart attacks in an evening and his wife had found him not breathing, with no idea how long he had been unconcious. Ben spent a week on a life support machine, and based upon the Doc's advice, he was removed from the apparatus with the expectation that he was simply going to die in a couple days. The medical decision was to not feed him or treat the other maladies he was suffering but just to control his pain and to wait for his demise. I saw Ben just before leaving on our cruise and I was pretty certain I was saying good-bye to him and that I would miss his funeral while we were gone.

But Ben didn't die. Instead, he got a little better. And his boss convinced his Docs to restart medical treatment, which they did, and then Ben got even better. The pneumonia went away and he began to maintain his conciousness. He had almost no short term memory but in a couple weeks and with numerous visits from several of us, his memory began to return. Additionally, Ben has no permanent damage to his heart and no surgical procedures are in his future.

The week after Thanksgiving Ben was even moved out of the hospital and into a theraputic rehab center, which is where he is right now. He has regained much of the memory and thought process capability that the Docs said he would never have again. He is getting stronger and healthier everyday. He has apparently forgotten that he was a long-time smoker and seems to have no desire for the demon nicotine. There's a possibility that he might even be able to return home to live in the coming weeks and perhaps return to some kind of work although he has been medically retired from civil service already.

Going home is a problem though. Ben has a wife but she's not mentally healthy and she needs to be under somebody elses care besides Ben's. He has a teenaged son who has been placed in foster care during this entire episode. So things are not good, overall and Ben's problems are not all resolved.

But he is alive, against all odds. And he is getting healthy, healthier than anyone could have expected. Ben's life, and his restored health is a direct result of answered, fervent prayer and nobody can convince me otherwise.